By George F. Lee, Star-Bulletin
Bud Bowles takes a call in his Round Top Drive home office,
which he uses to run Bowles Advertising and now Forty Plus
Hawaii. The 26-year-old organization shut down last month,
only to be restarted by Bowles.

---

Member restarts
isle Forty Plus

But the group's former president
isn't happy with the new operation

By Peter Wagner
Star-Bulletin

It's down, but not out.

Faced with dwindling membership and rising bills, the nonprofit Forty Plus of Hawaii last month turned out the lights for the last time. But somebody flicked them back on.

"It's nuts but it's a good cause," said Bud Bowles, president and owner of Bowles Advertising.

Last to join Forty Plus before it closed, Bowles snatched the 26-year-old job-finding organization from oblivion and is operating -- tentatively as Forty Plus of Honolulu -- from his home on Round Top Drive.

After contacting former board members, Bowles switched the Forty Plus telephone listing to his "virtual office" at home. It's an awkward situation, because Bowles also operates his advertising business there.

"I answer the phone a little strangely," he said. "I say, 'Hi, this is Bud' because I don't know if it's a call for Forty Plus or Bowles Advertising."

But the make-shift operation, with just a phone, fax, and a few volunteers, is gathering resumes and sending them out to Honolulu businesses, as usual.

"The only thing we don't have now is a facility where you can come in and do your resume," he said. "But you can do that at Kinko's."

The former Forty Plus, which operated on modest dues and the donated time of its members, helped find jobs for mid-career professionals and managers over the age of 40. More than 1,200 placements were made through Forty Plus of Hawaii since it opened in 1971 -- about 90 percent of applicants.

But Hawaii's struggling economy, combined with a migration of workers looking for better opportunities on the mainland, put Forty Plus on the ropes.

Phil Whitney, former president of Forty Plus Hawaii, said he's not pleased with Bowles' hit-or-miss attempt to resurrect the organization.

"When you've had a professional organization and all of a sudden somebody comes out of the woodwork and doesn't want to talk to you, I'm concerned," Whitney said. "I'm kind of disappointed that something like this can tarnish a record of 26 years of very professional work here."

Bowles, with 20 years of experience in marketing and advertising, joined Forty Plus after leaving his job as communications director at the American Cancer Society.

He said his ad agency is doing well enough to sustain him.

What prompted his quick decision, he said, was his father's experience at a similar organization on the mainland.

"My father's morale was saved by Forty Plus when he was in San Diego," he said. "I just didn't want to see something like this shut."

It's a labor of love, and no fees are being contemplated.

"The phone expense is the only overhead now, so we'll pass the plate," he said.

But Bowles, working on the new organization's first newsletter, hopes someone will come along to give Forty Plus a better home.

"I'm willing to give up the number any time a group gets an office, with enough volunteers to man it," he said.

"I just don't want it to die."